Book review: The 3 mistakes of my life – Chetan Bhagat

Just finished reading “The three mistakes of my life“. The only regret I have is why didn’t I read it earlier. When i started off reading it i got mixed reactions, some said its good, some said its bad, so I decided to digg into it and find for myself.

Few pages through the book I was reluctant to continue as i felt i would have a sad feeling at the end of this book. But I continued and I was glad I did, it was so engrossing that I flipped page after page till the end. And yes it has a happy ending :-). So the verdict being its the best among all the three that Chetan Bhagat has written.

The book has fiction (if you thought its about Chetan’s life, you are wrong:-)), sentiment, romance, social message, business, life, relations, religion and of course Cricket. The unique thing I found in this book is that Chetan has addressed a sensitive issue in the most sensible way possible. He has presented the facts, narrated a story in a neutral way.

It’s the story about three friends Omi, Govind and Ish. The story is presented through Govind’s eyes and its his three mistakes(???) of life that are presented along. Govind is a true gujarati, interested in coming up on his own in life, through business. Ish is an avid cricket player whose passion lies in playing, teaching and watching cricket. Omi is a priest ‘s son who doesn’t have any ambition of his own and just moves along with his two friends.The journey of these simple people in life, how their lives get affected by the worst disasters in gujarat’s history is portrayed in a simple yet efficient way by Chetan. This book also teaches you how your dreams crash into pieces by unexpected events but how with support from people around, you get back on track,focus and rebuild your dreams.

This novel especially comes at a time when people only want to come up with excuses to show or feel how different they are rather than see the common aspects and bring oneness which can keep us together and achieve our common goal of growth, peace and prosperity.The language is simple,it connects well with the youth of India, the narration has improved, all in all Chetan has improved in all the departments of writing a book. He has again proved that to be a best novelist you don’t need fabulous vocabulary or you don’t need awesome critics review, all you need is a thread to connect to the plain minds of people. Truly his best book ever.

Finally, Chetan ends the book with a message like in “One night @ call center” which goes out to every one in this country.

Life will have many setbacks. People close to you will hurt you. But you don’t break it off. You don’t hurt them more. You try to heal it. It is a lesson not only you, but our country needs to learn.

Chetan Bhagat

It does make you think about certain aspects and the feeling lingers with you for a long time. That is what you would remember after many long years that you have read the book and of course guys would remember the Cricket and the girl :) (A typical character found in his last two novels).

So this book is for you if you are

1. Someone from Gujarat or Ahmedabad, you can relate a lot to the slang, attitude and places described.
2. You like masala, drama with a tint of reality.
3. You are NOT a english language freak and are looking for a simple, engrossing, time killing novel.
4. Last but not the least, you are a fan of Chetan Bhagat :)

Want to know more.. check out ChetanBhagat.com

Price: Rs. 95/-

you can get it online at these stores:
FlipKart.com, IndiaTimes.com, OxfordBookStore.com, TheHinduShopping.com